Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Horse Books

I admit it, I'm a sucker for trashy novels in general, but I particularly love trashy novels with horses in them. I first read Riders by Jilly Cooper in about 1989 and I've probably read it on a nearly annual basis since then.

The latest book I read in that genre was called In & Out by Barbara Moss. It's the story of Jericho Brandeis a orphan and horse trainer with Olympic dreams and a dick that gets him into lots of trouble. I found his sex life kind of disturbing, I mean this guy would poke just about any woman who stood in front of him. This guy had the sexual mores of a hound dog. And safe sex? Forget it. There are no condoms in In & Out. Then, when he knocks up the wife of his patron (the one that lets him ride his million dollar horse) he is devastated to learn that she's off in Switzerland getting an abortion. Somehow prior to a FIRST TRIMESTER termination the mother knew that she was aborting a boy. Now, the only way to determine the sex of your baby before amniocentesis or ultrasound (done in the 2nd trimester or very late in the first) is that relatively new bloodtest that you can do after 5 weeks. If you were a cold callous bitch who would have the gaul to have an abortion (the tone of the book, not mine), would you send off for the fancy bloodtest to find out the gender ahead of time?

Stay with me, it gets weirder. So his lover's husband arranges for him to be told that she's off getting rid of his son right before he jumps in a big class. He is pretty devastated, but goes on to win. Then he convinces the United States Equestrian Team to wear black arm bands in honor of his "dead son." They even make an announcement about it over the PA. Is it just me, or is this incredibly fucked up? Even in a planned pregnancy anything can happen in the first trimester. Plus this guy sticks his doodle in just about anything that moves, so can he really be that surprised to find out he's knocked somebody up? Yes, it's shitty to go have an abortion without telling the father. But the way he got around, he could have left a string of fatherless children all over the country. No question about that. I just found the sexual morals of the book so inconsistent. The "hero" can't control his sexual urges and beds all the female characters. A female character gets pregnant and she's a murderer. It made it especially creepy that she claimed to know the gender of the baby.

The horse parts of the story were really fun. Am I getting old, or is a sex scene in every chapter more than a little boring?